Bird Avenue Improvement Project discussed
The Bird Avenue Improvement Project was discussed at the Village Council meeting last week. As of now, the project will only cover half of Bird Avenue, from US1 to Virginia, There are new medians, restricted turns and a traffic circle at Virginia Street. Above is one section of the plans.
Most on the Village Council felt that the east end of Bird needs the work more than the west end, but it appears that for now, it's easier dealing with easements and legalities on the west end and there is no need to hold up the whole project. The east end will happen in time.
Lots of medians with vegetation and trees is planned along with wide sidewalks and bike lanes. Traffic signals will be in sync on US1 and 32nd Avenue and Virginia Street. The budget is $2 million, but projections are that it will cost much less due to the lower bidding and prices in this bad economy.
To put the FPL lines underground would cost $5 million and that would be put on the backs of the taxpayers, so that will not happen. The projected start is October and it should take eight months.
Some changes were requested by the Village Council, like removing the traffic circle, opening up more of the median to allow for easier access and turns and make it less Coral Gables and Brickell-like and more Key West and rustic Coconut Grove-like.
Village Council member Michelle Niemeyer asked if the $2 million could go to something more pressing in town but the money has been allotted to this particular project, the voters decided this in 2001 and it legally binding.
posted by Tom Falco at 10:00 AM
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26 Comments:
"Lots of medians with vegetation and trees is planned along with wide sidewalks and bike lanes."
I remember the last meeting at the bookstore about this project, papa Sarnoff was talking about "Bike Lanes" on Bird road. I was standing right next to him. ---Since I know it's practically impossible to build Real Bike lanes there, plus it's an exercise in futility, plus they should be built in way more transitted places like S. Bayshore Dr---- I told him" will those be REAL Bike lanes, or just a little Bike Trail for mountain bikes"? He did not reply, and everyone at the Bookstore started laughing.. CI
"Village Council member Michelle Niemeyer asked if the $2 million could go to something more pressing in town but the money has been allotted to this particular project, the voters decided this in 2001 and it legally binding."
If memory serves, they were talking about 3 million available for Bird Ave., a few blocks there. People were indeed wondering, why There? (When you have many other streets in dire need of improvement, such as 27th Av or Tiger Tail, or South Bayshore Dr., which are all a veritable mess.)
The response by the city officials was something like " Bird Av. is part of the City of Miami, and not the County. Someone may correct me on that, but it's a political, jurisdiction irrational thing anyway, as usual. The Grove is getting the short end of the stick, as usual. CI
Actually it was $4 million for the whole length of Bird Avenue from Aviation to US1.
This thing is just awful. Why on earth are we going to restrict access to Bird? There's no need for it. This looks like a way to sell concrete to me.
Horrible design, which will result in more congestion, Uturns and accidents. Who works on these plans? Seriously, I want to know if the person who drew this up has ever seen or been to coconut grove.
I've about had it with the city of miami. I'm thinking I need to move. I've never seen a place so consistently spend money to make things worse.
Anon 12:08: I completely agree with you.
Sorry to break the from all the critics, but I'd consider this a huge improvement. The congestion and accidents that I frequently see on this exact section are from 1) the stoplight that's being replaced by a more convenient round-about, and 2) drivers that will no longer be able to cross traffic to enter bird from random driveways and side streets. As someone who frequents this section of road at least once a day, I'm looking forward to the improvements.
Please, I ask any objective observer to look at that proposed project, and in particular the location of yet another traffic circle.
Connect the dots yet?
That's right! More of our precious tax dollars working overtime for our duely elected Commissioner Marc Sarnoff.
Why do we have to pay another dime toward any more improvements to Virginia St? I mean it's outrageous!
He's already spent 100K on one circle directly adjacent to his house, created a dog park directly across his house and is now starting to plant "seeds" with several of his cohorts to get people at the end of Virginia St. excited about a "promanade" so he can once and for all close traffic on his street.
We the people need to tell this self indulgent pig of a politician that enough is enough. We're not his godamn slush fund to pay for projects that primarily benefit him.
I can think of 1000 better ways to spend the money.
A round-about, or traffic-circle would be a disaster waiting to happen.
They control traffic more efficiently in certain situations, like cities where driver's know how to use them.
Sadly, Miami is not one of those cities.
The roundabouts work just fine on Virginia Street, south Gables and South Miami Avenue. This has become the forum to whine about absolutely EVERYTHING, if they did Bayshore, someone would complain it wasn't Tigertail, and if they did Tigertail somebody would complain it wasn't Bird. Oh, and that everything bad that happens is due to Marc Sarnoff - really, you people give him too much credit!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the referendum the gentleman referred to at our meeting (the transportation initiative) was the one that was supposed to improve public transportation. Hmmm. Lots of improvement to public transportation here.
Here's what it does do: 1) it makes one of the least visually pleasing roads in the Grove into a boulevard with landscaped medians; 2) it widens sidewalks where we already have them; 3) it adds a bicycle lane while taking the car lanes from two in each direction to one; 4) it adds street parking (with meters?) along the side of the road in front of condos on the south side of Bird; 5) it prevents you from turning left as you are heading west on Bird all the way from the planned circle at Virginia to McDonald.
I thought I voted for a 1/2 cent tax to build high speed train lines between major Florida cities.
This is great. I really hope these plans and changes happen as well as they did for 27th avenue. Which is so beautiful now.
Wait sorry, that never happened. But the plans were nice, these look nice also. The waterfront plans also look nice.. soon we will have some plans for peacock park glass house.. come to think about it we sure have a lot of plans in the Grove. This place is going to look spectacular some day.
The bike lanes are key. We want to encourage a biking community. If you want to recreate the Old Grove/Key West feel you've got to have better bike lanes and provide a safer environment along our roads. The previous posts are right about wondering why 27th Av, Tigertail and S. Bayshore have not been done. This needs topic more attention. It's a great quality of life enhancer and well worth the communities investment.
What about those of us who need to use Bird Rd to (brace yourself) leave the grove for:work, groceries, etc. the traffic circle mon Virginia kept me driving around the block for a couple of weeks. tearing up Bird rd will force me (and everyone else in the area)to take all kinds of backroads just to get to US1.
"the voters decided this in 2001"
9 years in the making, Government at its best. Wow!
Does this really take that long.
Huge mistake to not prioritize the undergrounding of our utilities (electric & telecommunications). The cost is likely over-inflated and needs further review. FPL does not want to underground transmission lines. They profit significantly from the maintenance, repair and replacement of this infrastructure. Every time we get a hurricane they bill the customer for the repair/replacement of the lines. As a community, we can't miss an opportunity like this to underground these services and while we have the roads trenched, MDWASD should take the opportunity to install grey water and upgraded sewer lines. Aside from the aesthetic enhancement, undergrounding these services makes long-term economic sense.
JimmyP - Congestion and accidents? Cmon man, dont exaggerate. I live right there and have never seen an accident and the road is barely congested.
Limey - Totally agree with you about roundabouts in Miami. I've never seen people so inept at understanding how a roundabout works. It's very funny and frustrating at the same time.
Michelle - there are not 2 lanes on each side of the road on that part of Bird, just one. I dont see much room for a median AND bike lanes without taking away some property from the homes there but I will admit I'm not an expert. And I agree, I thought I voted for a transportation tax that would help build a rail throughout South Florida. *sigh*
In any case, this traffic circle and proposed medians plan is a bad one. I wouldnt mind seeing some improvements on Bird (if they HAVE to be done for whatever reason) but the removal of the traffic light in favor of a roundabout is a dumb idea. There is too much traffic on that road and a roundabout (a very small one at that) will be a nightmare.
A roundabout there would be a horrible idea. Too much traffic and inept drivers. If they want to fix congestion on Bird (at the spot where there actually IS congestion), they should fix the timing of the light on Bird and US1. The green light there is stupidly short. To make matters worse, eastbound drivers often run through the red which makes things worse for those of us trying to go west or turn south onto US1.
Traffic circle at Virginia Street....Surprise, surprise..
Is there anything in the budget for lighting? There aren't that many street lights around that Virginia-Bird intersection and people fly down Bird all the time...
Roundabouts only work on side streets. This is a main artery to the Grove. A traffic circle there will cause congestion. Anyone with any background whatsoever in urban planning can tell you that roundabouts cannot and do not work in a situation such as that.
For Ana Miranda - please explain how your comment is productive at all. Thanks. You say people post just to whine and bitch - hmm, irony, I like it.
I drive bird every day during rush hour traffic - a circle would be a trainwreck.
Finally, anyone who doesn't think Sarnoff had a hand in this mess, you are completely out of it.
anon at 11:22. You are completely correct about roundabouts! Get the planners to cite studies that show roundabouys are justified in main arteries They can't. Also, I would think that the plans for bird rd are public documents available for anyone to see. Does anyone have specific and accurate info about this ?
Agreed with Erick on the timing of the light at Bird and US1. It sucks, especially if youre going towards the Gables because drivers run the light and then get stuck in the middle and sometimes ZERO cars get thru.
I hate to be a "Marc Sarnoff is looking out for himself" person but based on past pet projects this is how I see things... Because of the light on Virginia and Bird stays green for Bird drivers for a very long time and then only red for a short amount of time to allow Virginia drivers access, drivers headed towards Bird on Virginia instead make a left on Shipping, pass the dog park, and make a right to get on Bird without a light. How do I know this? I do the same thing myself. Sarnoff probably doesnt like the traffic coming by his house (not that you can drive fast because people who park at the dog park are inconsiderate and park in the street so you have to go around them) so he is making a plan so that you cant make a left on Bird to head towards US1 from any of those other feeder streets.
Hey, why is the only free parking in all of coconut grove at the dog park?
C'mon, I know some of you know the answer to this...
Because Sarnoff runs his law firm out of his house and has his clients park there for free.
Len Scinto:
The problem with this plan is that it does everything for image and nothing for the residents. Want to calm traffic and narrow Bird to 1 lane in either direction fine...No medians...Rather keep the cars to the middle of the street and widen the sidewalk and swales area. Put real curbs with storm sewers to stop the flooding/mudding of the sidewalks (where they are...put them in where they are not)and put in bike lanes. Lanscape the swales with native vegetation that can attract butterflies and birds (much more so than median "islands" surrounded by traffic). The neighbors need imporvements that they benefit from and not some "Balharbor-looking" face job.
The grove is going to end up looking like one of those washed up old models or actresses who had way too much work done.
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